A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:
What fraction of loss being lean mass is actually normal, because the numbers quoted here range from 10% to 40% and cannot all be right?
DerekSJ_a1c said:Second scan under matched conditions, six months apart, same time of day: the lean number came back nearly a kilo higher than the panic scan.
I read this differently. The confidence in this thread is running ahead of the evidence, and I would rather the uncertainty were stated than smoothed over because it is unsatisfying.
DerekSJ_a1c said:Second scan under matched conditions, six months apart, same time of day: the lean number came back nearly a kilo higher than the panic scan.
Correct, and worth adding that it is reversible. Nothing being described here is a one-way door, which changes how cautious it is reasonable to be.
Certified reference materials, analytical reagents, and research-grade standards for peptide verification. Trusted by laboratories worldwide.
Shop Reference StandardsDerekSJ_a1c said:Second scan under matched conditions, six months apart, same time of day: the lean number came back nearly a kilo higher than the panic scan.
Thank you — that is the clearest version of this I have read, and I have read a lot of them. Sending this to two other people who asked me the same thing last week.
Clinical perspective, offered as context rather than as advice. The distinction that resolves most of these threads is between what is true on average and what is true for one person. Both are real; they answer different questions and get quoted as if they were the same one.
Worth separating that from lean-mass preservation, which this thread keeps folding into the same question. They behave differently and the advice does not transfer.